Tag Archives: Legion Magazine

May 24 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Queen Victoria, during whose 63-year reign Canada moved from colony to confederation—mostly peacefully, thanks in large part to her.

Perhaps she was predisposed to fondness for the colony, as her father, Edward, Duke of Kent lived in Canada in the 1790s, eventually becoming commander-in-chief of the British North American forces. Prince Edward Island is named for him.

In 1837 and 1838, the years Victoria ascended to the throne and was crowned, bloody rebellion was quashed in the British colonies of Lower and Upper Canada (Quebec and Ontario today). Rebels, unhappy with the ruling elite, wanted more control over raising and spending of revenues in their colonies.

The American employed soaring oratory in calling D-Day troops to “the Great Crusade.” The Brit summoned the words of a 17th-century soldier-poet as he urged the “team” on in their “great and righteous cause.”

The Canadian, on the other hand, reminded his troops of the “knowledge and experience bought and paid for” by brothers-in-arms who had gone down to abject defeat at Dieppe two years earlier.

The generals commanding Allied forces on D-Day took different tacks in their efforts to inspire soldiers boarding ships and aircraft bound for the greatest seaborne invasion the world has ever seen.

Usually engraved, the ship’s bell is often the primary identifying element of an historic wreck, as was the bronze bell from HMS Erebus, explorer John Franklin’s vessel that was found after 168 years beneath Arctic waters.

Bells aboard modern ships often bear the name of the shipyard that built the ship in addition to the name of the ship itself. If the ship’s name is changed, maritime tradition dictates the original bell with the original name remain with the vessel.

The Second World War came home to Canada with a U-boat attack in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in the spring of 1942, bringing the naval conflict to Canada’s inland waters.

Between 1942 and 1944, 23 ships were sunk by German submarines and hundreds of lives were lost.

Kapitänleutnant Karl Thurmann had dispatched five ships and damaged another during U-553’s first six missions in far-ranging patrols in the North Atlantic. His seventh mission brought him to Canadian waters.

In the late hours of May 11, 1942, off the Gaspé Peninsula, the British ship SS Nicoya, en route to join a convoy in Halifax, crossed his path. U-553 launched a torpedo. As the crew was abandoning the ship, a second torpedo sealed its fate, and that of six crew. The next morning, 111 survivors were rescued.

For weeks in April 2011, Kandahar in Afghanistan had endured an increasing number of Taliban attacks. On May 7, the city of a million descended into chaos.

Somewhere between 60 and 100 insurgents and 20 suicide bombers attacked multiple targets, including the governor’s compound, Afghan army headquarters, three police stations, the mayor’s office, two high schools and an Afghanistan intelligence agency office. Insurgents had taken over a three-storey shopping centre and were shooting down into the governor’s compound.

The Afghan National Police sent in their special response team, and soon help was asked of Canadian Special Operations Task Force 58 and the embedded partnering team at forward operating base Graceland, commanded by Captain David Suffoletta.

One of the team’s first objectives was clearing the massive shopping centre, a job that took about 12 hours.

There was a bit of a row across the pond recently after the Scottish Maritime Museum decided to adopt gender-neutral signage for its vessels.

Museum director David Mann told The Guardian newspaper the decision to drop “she” for “it” when referencing ships was made after two signs were vandalized, presumably by folks opposed to the feminization of inanimate objects, a practice also applied to man’s other favourite toys: planes, trains and automobiles.

“The debate around gender and ships is wide-ranging, pitting tradition against the modern world,” Mann said. “But I think that we have to move with the times.”

Not so, the Royal Navy, which said it has no plans to abandon its longstanding tradition of referring to its ships as “she.”

Nor does the Royal Canadian Navy which, like its sister service across the pond, has no formal policy on the matter to abandon—only tradition, with which it intends to stick, said one officer, “until we are told otherwise.”

Celebrated officers wore the feathered crowns of egrets. British infantrymen wear “hackles.” Italian shock troops, known as Bersaglieri, rather flamboyantly sport the feathers of a particular wood grouse known as a capercaillie.

Military tradition has spawned a bizarre menagerie of headgear, both for dress occasions and battle. The practice is virtually as old as warfare. It knows no borders and, at times, it seems to defy logic.

The traditions have given birth to phrases such as “a feather in your cap” (an accomplishment one should be proud of) and “a brass hat” (a person of high position).

After taking Vimy Ridge in early April 1917, Canadian Corps’ success in France continued with an attack on the Arleux Loop on April 28-29 that drove the Germans to Fresnoy-en-Gohelle.

General Sir Douglas Haig then had two objectives: to secure a more defensible position and draw German attention away from the Aisne sector, where the French Army was fighting to capture a strategic ridge with the hope of an advance to Laon.

Haig planned a new attack by three armies across a 22-kilometre front, aiming to consolidate a good defensive line by mid-May. Fresnoy was the Canadian target.

75th Anniversary of D-DayJune 6, 2019 at 6:00 pm – 7:30 pmMarines' Memorial Club & Hotel, 609 Sutter St, San Francisco, CA 94102, USAOn 6 June 1944, 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces launched one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history along a 50-mile stretch of the coast of Normandy, France. To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the end of WWII in Europe, Brigadier (Retd.) Roderick Macdonald MBE and Dr. Seth Givens will…